Loki: Why I Began the End (11 page)

      “Yes: Leave.”

      “Oh, you think
I
should leave Asgard. You forget, Ram Boy, this is my home. Where’s your home, Heimdall? Not Asgard.”

     He jumped from his seat and banged his fist on the table. “
Loki
!”

      “Is that all you can say? Wouldn’t you like to tell everyone about your less-than-noble heritage?”

     Now Thor chimed in to caution me: “Loki, just stop before—”

      “Oh, you’re trying to help me out now? Well, I don’t need your help, lunkhead, not now. How about back at that alehouse, when you discovered that the center of everyone’s asinine game could talk and laugh? Did you help then?”

      “I stopped throwing things at Balder from that day on!”

      “But you sat and watched everyone else do it! Think, Thor: There’s not a single Aesir who doesn’t respect you and fear you. Are you telling me it never entered that boulder brain of yours to actually
do
something?”

      “Loki…” He tried to protest, but came up short.

      “No, you had a public image to protect. It’s never about the people around you—it’s always about you.”

      “That’s not true!”

      “Let’s ask your daughter. I’m sure you remember your daughter, don’t you? Just in case, I’ll refresh your memory. She was in love with a dwarf—an all-around nice guy. What did you do when he came to you like a gentleman and asked to marry your daughter?”

     Thor clenched his teeth. “Shut up.”

      “You had him turned to stone! And why? Because you thought he was too puny. Doesn’t matter that your daughter would have been happy; you didn’t want a dwarf for a son-in-law. Has your daughter forgiven you, Thor? You don’t know? Oh, that’s right! She ran away from home, and you haven’t seen her since.”

     Thor stood and brandished his hammer, shouting, “
I’ll cleave your head from your neck
!”

     I just shrugged. “You can’t take a head without taking the neck, nitwit.”

      “You want to see me try?!”

      “
Enough
!” Odin pounded his staff against the ground. “Loki, you will leave immediately.”

     I didn’t move. I just smiled crookedly and asked, “Aren’t you curious to find out what I know about you,
brother
? You must be. Curiosity is what cost you an eye.” I looked around the table at the other Aesir. “What has our wise-eyed Odin told you all about his competition with the Jotun called Vafthrudnir?”

     I saw him grow rigid with alarm, and he began rambling. “Loki, you are charged with the death of Balder…”

     I wouldn’t be interrupted; I shouted over him: “He and the giant had a battle of wits, you see…”

     His volume increased to cover mine: “…an enemy to the Aesir, to Asgard, to the world…”

      “…Vafthrudnir matched him question by question with ease…”

      “
Funfeng
!” he bellowed.

     Funfeng was a servant tending the feast. Upon Odin’s order, he grabbed my arm and tried to subdue me. I swung around and punched him in the throat, and as soon as he backed off to catch his breath, I formed into an eagle to fly high above them all. “I see how it is now!” I declared as I hovered above them. “You care more about protecting your own egos than you do about protecting your families. And you managed to drag me down to that level, too. Well, no more.” With that, I turned and flew out of Asgard, calling behind me: “Enjoy your party!”

CHAPTER TWELVE: TO WHERE WE ARE NOW

Before, I had decided not to hide from the Aesir’s revenge. But after the feast, it became my most fervent goal. I intended to find you, tell you to bring our sons Vali and Narfi from Asgard, and we would hide from the Aesir wherever we could—even in the realm of the dead with Hel, if necessary. After all they had said and done, I didn’t want the Aesir to feel justified in their behavior by blaming me—I was determined not to let them win this battle. And at the same time, I would protect my family from them and their warped, hypocritical values.

     And, if all possible, I would find a way to free Fenrir.

     As you well know, I never reached you. Almost as soon as I had left Asgard, Heimdall was right on my tail, riding his golden horse through the air. No amount of effort on my part could outrun that horse on land or air. My only escape was to dive into the forest, and for the few moments I was ahead of my pursuer, I formed into a salmon and plunked into the lake with the others. His horse wouldn’t set foot in the water, but that didn’t deter Heimdall. He was well prepared. From his saddlebag, he took out a net and cast it over the water. Were that any other net, I would have gotten away fine. But it was the net belonging to the sea goddess Ran—impossible to escape. The net ensnared me, and when he tugged it onto the shore, I had to form into myself again, or die of suffocation. Heimdall swung the net over his head, then threw it against the ground. My head struck the ground hard enough to make me dizzy. When my vision cleared again, Heimdall had me by my shirt collar, glaring murder.

      “If Odin didn’t want you alive…” he seethed.

      “…then you’d kill me with your breath, right?” I retorted.

     Then he punched me in the jaw, felling me back into the net. He slung the net over his horse and towed me along back to Asgard—almost. We stopped at a field at the foot of the Bifrost Bridge, where everyone was assembled. I was only confused for only a second before I realized that it was against policy to cause death in Asgard. Clearly, they had something special in mind for me.

     When Heimdall stood before the council of Aesir and poured me out of the net like a fisherman’s catch, my jaw bruised, everyone laughed.

      “As always, I’m so glad I can amuse you,” I said dryly, testing the flexibility of my jaw.

     The Aesir crowded around me for jeering purposes, until they parted ways for Odin. He announced, “Loki, you are found guilty of the death of my son Balder. You are a traitor to the Aesir, to your blood-brother, and to the vow you made.”

      “Yeah, okay,” I muttered. “So what now? The spear, the hammer, both?”

     Now, any normal person would reason to directly punish he who committed the crime, but I knew full well that, like myself, my blood-brother and father Odin was not of a normal turn of mind. He called to his servants, “Bring Vali and Narfi!”

     Somehow, I didn’t think him capable of being that low—after throwing Jor into the sea, Hel into the underworld, and chaining Fenrir, he couldn’t possibly harm my sons Vali and Narfi; not the sons he respected and welcomed into Asgard and treated like nephews. Not the only children of mine to be treated as they deserved.

      “
Odin…
” I warned. “This is between you and me. They have nothing to do with any of this!”

     But he completely ignored me as he waved his arms at Vali and murmured various runes. Vali shouted in pain, and I jumped to help him, but Heimdall and Thor held me back. Then I watched as Vali sprouted fur all over his body, pointed ears, a tail—and a muzzle filled with fangs. When the transformation to a wolf was complete, he looked to his brother Narfi—but he obviously didn’t know his brother anymore. With a snarl, he pounced onto his brother and…

     …

     …I couldn’t watch. I was just…trying to tear myself away from Heimdall and Thor, and screaming at Odin. “
I saved Balder
! I saved him from a life without living! And as his father,
you
should have been the one to do something;
you
should have been the one to tell that damned mob to stop!”

     I just kept screaming. I’d rather hear my own screaming that my son’s screams of agony, and I wanted to tell Odin everything he deserved to hear. I don’t…

     …

     …I don’t even remember all of what I said or did. I only remember that I wanted nothing more in the world than to tear out Odin’s eye, the eye that looked at me so disapprovingly…that eye that looked at me like…Heh. No, I couldn’t even really say. I mean, it looked like some kind of remorse, like he felt betrayed, or like…like he pitied me, or something. Yeah, well, whatever it was, I just wanted to reach out, and…

     …Well, anyway, I couldn’t get near him. When my voice was getting hoarse, and my sons were both silent, Thor and Heimdall began binding me in chains—these chains. I know…I know they’re not really metal chains. Yeah…all natural material from my murdered son’s bowels…

     …and people used to say
I
have a sick sense of humor…

     They had to drag me down, all the way down to the underworld, and chained me to these three rocks (which, yes, the idiots named them, too). As though this all wasn’t bad enough, as a final touch, they positioned this snake right over my head, dripping this searing venom onto my face. At least, it would if you weren’t here to catch it in that bowl. They didn’t count on you being so loyal to me. Truth is, neither did I—I don’t know what’s in your head that ever made you love me, but I’m grateful for it.

     But don’t worry; I won’t be strapped to these rocks forever, regardless of whatever ridiculous names they were given. You
and
I; we’ll both get out someday, and Odin and Heimdall and Thor and all the Aesir will get a reckoning from me and my children who still live. Then maybe, after it’s all through, the world will have gone through a great change. Maybe, then, it will actually be suitable and deserving of people like Balder.

     And
that
is why.

     Careful, you’re going to spill…Ah! That stings!

     Hey…

     …it burned through the chain…

The moon shall douse the sun

And darkness consume light;

Giants shall challenge gods

And both share in slaughter;             

An axe age, a sword age,

No shield to quell the blow;

A wind age, a wolf age

Ere the world splits in two—

Ragnarok, the world’s end

To rattle ev’ry soul

The day that dread Loki

Is loosed from his bonds.

—Skuld, the seer of future fate

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